Ophelia Lovibond

By Kaleem Aftab

Photography Mark Segal

If you see a pink Peugeot 10-speed flying through the crowded streets of West London, there’s a good chance that Ophelia Lovibond is riding it. Lovibond has even named her preferred mode of transportation Charlene. “She just looks like a Charlene,” she says. The British-born Lovibond began acting at age 10 when she went to a local Saturday afternoon theater group. She started working professionally a decade ago, appearing on British television. Only recently has she been freewheeling her way into the movie business. After appearing in Sam Taylor-Wood’s John Lennon biopic Nowhere Boy, in which she plays Lennon’s teen flame (the film is released Stateside next month), she signed up for a part in The Ring- director Hideo Nakata’s first film set in England, Chatroom. Lovibond also stars as a depressed young woman in Mark Davis and Noel Clarke’s girl adventure movie 4.3.2.1. “The character was pretty hardcore, not a happy bunny at all,” she says of the latter role. Additionally, in London Boulevard, an ode to film noir, she plays a dodgy femme fatale who gets entangled with Colin Farrell’s character, a jailbird trying to go straight. This year Lovibond makes the big move to Hollywood, as a young, egotistical Malibu-wannabe with a massive wardrobe in Ivan Reitman’s still untitled forthcoming comedy which also stars Natalie Portman, Ashton Kutcher, and Kevin Kline. Surprisingly, despite all the work, she isn’t stressed by her own vertiginous rise in film. “You’re just sitting there and doing your job and listening to the direction and you’re doing the best you can,” she says. “And then just for a split moment you kind of step outside yourself and realize, ‘Yes, this is so much fun. I can’t be cool about this, and I can’t help laughing so much.’”